ANNUAL REPORT 2023-2024
Dear Members,
Thank you for your continued support of the Berkeley Faculty Association. Remember, you can keep up to date with all of our activities on our website, especially on the Viewpoints tab where we post our op-eds and statements. Please be in touch with our co-chairs if you would like to be more actively involved, we are especially keen to have faculty from as many departments and ranks on our Board.
This year has been a busy one. Our work has continued to focus around three priorities: improving working conditions, protecting faculty governance, defending academic freedom and free speech. These priorities were at the center of our open letter to the new Chancellor.
• A good deal of time was spent this year keeping faculty informed about the rising costs of their health benefits and the continuing, scandalous, delays in merit and promotion cases. Sadly, little progress has been made with clearing the backlog of cases, let alone personally apologizing to those faculty whose cases are delayed, despite our numerous communications and suggestions to campus leaders.
• The Palestinian solidarity movement on campuses across the country has ignited a new McCarthyism that has sought to equate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, criminalize non-violent protest, and place restrictions on academic freedom and free speech. We have stood firm in our opposition to these arguments when they have been mobilized by campus leaders or the Regents. We are deeply concerned at the ways in which the idea of ‘institutional neutrality’ is being used by faculty opposed to DEI policies and by UCOP and the Regents as they declare student encampments unlawful and defend investments in companies that profit from the war in Gaza.
• We have continued to be alarmed by the erosion of faculty governance on our campus and, perhaps most alarmingly, across the University of California. This year the Regents have repeatedly over-reached their authority in ways that undermine campus autonomy and the principles of shared governance. They have ignored the advice of Academic Council on online education and political statements on websites. We continue to lament the absence of financial transparency and accountability which we believe should lie at the heart of faculty governance on our campus as well as inform the principles of investment for the UC endowment and pension fund.
Finally, we would like to thank our fabulous staff Eric Hays and Deborah Rosenberg for all their labor. We are sad to report that three of our co-chairs – Sharad Chari, Mara Loveman and James Vernon – are stepping down this year. We are immensely grateful for their service. A new leadership team will be announced at the start of the Fall semester.
Co-chairs, on behalf of the Board
Sharad Chari, Alastair Iles, Mara Loveman, James Vernon